You wander through the halls, fretfully following the messages on the floor: ONE WAY, ONE WAY, ONE WAY. How long has it been since you’ve last seen another student? Ten minutes? Twenty? An hour? Thinking you’ve missed your classroom, you turn around, but remember the arrows under your shoes. Desperation takes hold as you lose hope that you’ll ever reach your class.

When we returned to school in Orange Mode earlier this fall, Potomac’s administrative team had to get creative to maximize social distancing. There were a few proposed solutions, such as arming faculty with nerf guns to prevent students standing too close together or integrating six-foot wide hula hoops into the dresscode. Their ultimate solution: arrows in the hallways. By having students and faculty take specific paths throughout the school,human contact would be minimized. However, an unprecedented issue soon arose as students struggled to find their classes, futilely wandering through the halls.

“I was fifteen minutes late to my first class,” Lea Saba said. “I think I lapped the school at least twice.” 

Students aren’t the only ones being affected by this path change; faculty members have also expressed their misery. 

“I’ve been at this school for seven years and I couldn’t find the way to my classroom… I haven’t seen my English students in days,” Mr. Wicker said.

Reports show that at least three students have gone missing since the beginning of October, as well as one faculty member. Search parties sent to investigate have also not returned.